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Editor's Note

Updated March 22, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET

For a long time, it has been pretty much a given in the e-commerce world: People won't pay for information. Yes, they'll buy just about anything else online -- books, clothes, cars, appliances, maybe even groceries -- but information? Except for a few exceptions -- most notably, The Wall Street Journal Online -- content sites haven't had a prayer of charging for their wares.

There is still, of course, plenty of free information out there. But as Michael Totty writes in his cover story, there are also plenty of sites that...